Do you hear a ringing or roaring sound in your ears that no one else can hear? Or can you hear the blood rushing through your body with every heartbeat? If so, you may have tinnitus. It’s a common problem linked to several health conditions, including cardiovascular disease.

“I am awakened with tinnitus in my right ear,” one MyHeartDiseaseTeam member shared about their experience. “My doctor says it’s a circulatory problem.”

According to existing research, the relationship between tinnitus and cardiovascular health is blurry. Research hasn’t proved that tinnitus is caused by heart issues, but some studies have found associations between the two. Keep reading to learn more about the connection between your heart health and hearing health.

What Is Tinnitus?

Tinnitus is a noise that you hear in one or both ears that doesn’t come from an external source. There are two types of tinnitus. The most common is subjective tinnitus, which may sound like a clicking, ringing, roaring, or whooshing sound that only you can hear. It affects around 15 percent of people worldwide, and it is more common among elderly people.

Pulsatile tinnitus is a type of tinnitus that may be related to heart health. This rare condition affects roughly 10 percent of people with tinnitus. In some cases, it can be a symptom of vascular disease (problems with your blood vessels) or tumors. As a result, people may hear a whooshing sound with every heartbeat. Sometimes, doctors can hear the same whooshing sound when they press a stethoscope onto a person’s neck and skull.

What Is the Connection Between Tinnitus and Heart Disease?

Tinnitus doesn’t affect everyone with heart disease. So, doctors can’t say that heart disease causes the hearing problem. Some research shows there is a possible connection between cardiovascular health problems and pulsatile tinnitus. Most of the time, the hearing problem occurs when you experience a change in the blood flow near your ears.

One MyHeartDiseaseTeam member said their tinnitus is a constant distraction that’s led to sleeplessness. “I have had pulsatile tinnitus in my ear for several years. Recently, it has gotten very loud,” they said. “The person that did the echocardiogram told me the sound I am hearing is my own murmur. It’s horrible and makes it very hard to sleep.”

The association between pulsatile tinnitus and heart health is still unclear. However, if you’re experiencing pulsatile tinnitus, these common heart health problems could be affecting your blood flow.

Atherosclerosis

Plaque that builds up inside your blood vessels can create a rocky path for your blood flow. Instead of running through your blood vessels smoothly, your blood flows over hard patches. That interference can create noise in your ears that becomes tinnitus. In fact, tinnitus is often one of the first signs of atherosclerosis, potentially affecting nearly 20 percent of individuals with narrowed arteries.

Heart Attack

Reduced blood flow can also happen when plaque buildup leads to a blood clot that causes a heart attack. As a result, someone having a heart attack may experience tinnitus. One study with more than 17,000 individuals shows people who have already had a heart attack are more prone to developing tinnitus. According to the study results, people who experience mild tinnitus were 39 percent more likely to have had a previous heart attack.

Heart Failure

Heart failure can produce many symptoms — tinnitus may be one of them. A small study with 200 people showed that roughly 25 percent of people diagnosed with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction also had tinnitus. Older people in the study experienced tinnitus more than younger people. In fact, with every year someone with heart failure aged, the study found their likelihood of developing tinnitus went up by 12 percent.

High Blood Pressure

If you have hypertension (high blood pressure), narrowed arteries restrict blood flow and increase your tinnitus risk. The results of one study revealed that people with high blood pressure were 9 percent more likely to have mild tinnitus.

Stroke

One study in Norway found women under age 65 who had mild tinnitus were 2.5 times more likely to experience a stroke than women without tinnitus. Another study with nearly 3,500 people showed adults in their 20s and 30s who had tinnitus were more likely to have ischemic cerebrovascular disease, a condition that can lead to stroke by narrowing blood vessels in the brain. The same study found that the association of tinnitus to ischemic cerebrovascular disease did not continue for participants aged 40 and older.

What Other Problems Can Cause Tinnitus?

Several other health issues can trigger tinnitus. Talk with your doctor if you have a constant sound in your ears and also experience some of these common problems:

• Ear blockages or infections — You can develop tinnitus with an ear infection or if dirt or earwax builds up in your ear.
• Hearing loss — If the cochlea (hairs inside your inner ear) are damaged from aging or loud noises, they can’t send the right signals to help your brain understand sounds. Sending the wrong signals can cause tinnitus.
• Medication side effects — Certain antibiotics, antidepressants, cancer drugs, diuretics, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can cause tinnitus. For some people, higher doses can make the condition worse.
• Head or neck injury — An injury to your head or neck can damage your inner ear and the auditory nerve that helps you hear. These types of injuries typically cause tinnitus in one ear.

Some less common conditions can also cause tinnitus. These include certain autoimmune disorders, Meniere’s disease, noncancerous tumors, or temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorders.

How Can You Manage Tinnitus?

Since pulsatile tinnitus appears when your blood flow changes, you may not be able to prevent the hearing problem. Instead, it’s important to talk to your doctor about the underlying heart condition responsible for your symptoms. For example, medication for high blood pressure may reduce the whooshing sound in your ears.

Sometimes, medication can’t fix the problem. Here are some other strategies that may help reduce distress from tinnitus:

• Counseling — Mental wellness techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help you train yourself to ignore the noise as much as possible.
• Environmental enrichment — Playing recordings of music or nature sounds can help distract you and make your tinnitus less noticeable.
• Relaxation — Stress-reduction techniques like mindfulness meditation can make it easier to deal with the constant noise in your head.
• Sound generators — White noise machines can create background sounds like rain or birds chirping that overpower your tinnitus.

Talk With Others Who Understand

MyHeartDiseaseTeam is the social network for people living with heart disease and their loved ones. On MyHeartDiseaseTeam, more than 62,000 members come together to ask questions, give advice, and share their stories with others who understand life with heart disease.

Do you have tinnitus? Have you talked to your doctor about it? How do you manage it? Share your experience in the comments below, or start a conversation by posting on your Activities page.